Shekhar Kapur to raise $500mn in S'pore

Shekhar Kapur, the director of Oscar-nominated film Elizabeth, is in talks to raise a $500 million fund in Singapore to invest in the entertainment industry, including movies and music across Asia.

Investors in Singapore were more willing to bet on businesses that might take a longer period of time to make a profit, unlike hedge funds or private equity firms, the Indian director said in an interview in Singapore.

"Singapore's capital markets have the kind of maturity to sit for the long-term investments," he said. "Most of the hedge funds and private equity are like foam, little bubbles that form, take the money and off they go."

Kapur aims to capitalise on rapid economic growth in Asia, home to 3.8 billion people, or 60 per cent of the global population. In India, the second-fastest growing major economy after China, he directed Bandit Queen in 1994, a controversial film that gained international attention when it was banned by the Indian government.

Startup companies with innovative ideas and technology needed time to nurture their businesses, said Andrew Craissati, a former investment banker and chief executive officer of the US-based Transpac Media, which advises companies on listing on the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM).

"That's what Google did at the beginning," Craissati said. They said, "If you are a short-term investor, don't buy our stocks because we are not interested."

Kapur plans to hire professionals to manage the fund, while he focuses on wooing global entertainment partners from the West. He expects to unveil his plan in the next three to six months.

In November 2005, Kapur joined UK billionaire Richard Branson, who owns Virgin Group, author Deepak Chopra and the US-based Gotham Entertainment to form Virgin Comics, a media company that creates original stories and epic myths for a global audience.

He was in the city-state as part of an international advisory panel to the Media Development Authority, which is mapping out the country's master plan for the media industry.

"The media industry in Asia is going through an explosive phase and what we are seeing is not even the tip of an iceberg," Kapur said on June 21.

"The next YouTube and Google, the future technology, will originate from Asia," he said. The global entertainment and media industry will expand at a 6.4 per cent annual rate to total $2 trillion in 2011, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLC said in a report last week.

Asia-Pacific will be the fastest-growing region, expanding 13.5 per cent a year, it said. The plan also reflects increasing difficulty for filmmakers in raising large sums of money from movie studios.

"Every director now realises that they can't rely on studio funding because studios are not interested in making films "" they are interested in distributing films," he said.

"Other directors and I will love to have funding so we can invest in films and explore unpredictable opportunities such as mobile space," Kapur said.